{"id":16107,"date":"2022-02-24T13:39:53","date_gmt":"2022-02-24T21:39:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/?p=16107"},"modified":"2022-02-24T13:39:53","modified_gmt":"2022-02-24T21:39:53","slug":"confidence-is-the-key-to-endurance-sport-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/confidence-is-the-key-to-endurance-sport-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Confidence is the Key to Endurance-sport Success"},"content":{"rendered":"

Confidence is the Key to Endurance-sport Success<\/strong><\/p>\n

Have you ever entered a race not feeling very confident about your ability to achieve your race goals that day? We\u2019ve all been there, to be sure. And what likely happened was that your race didn\u2019t go the way you wanted, that is to say, you were slower than you had hoped to be or, even worse, you may not have made it to the finish at all. The reality of endurance sports is that if you don\u2019t truly believe you can maintain a certain pace or go a particular distance, you won\u2019t give your best effort because you assume you\u2019ll blow up. That\u2019s why, on race, confidence is your most important mental muscle.<\/p>\n

What is Confidence?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I define confidence as how strongly you believe in your ability to perform your best and achieve your endurance-sports goals. Confidence is so important because you may be physically capable of racing at a certain pace, but if you don\u2019t believe you have that ability, then you won\u2019t attempt that pace.<\/p>\n

Your goal is to develop what I call \u2018prime confidence,\u2019 a deep, lasting, and resilient belief in your endurance-sport ability. Prime confidence keeps you positive, motivated, intense, and focused when you need to be most. With prime confidence, you can stay confident even when you\u2019re not at your best on race day. You aren\u2019t negative and uncertain in difficult race conditions and you\u2019re not overconfident in easy races. Prime confidence also encourages you to seek out challenging situations and to view difficult conditions and a tough course as challenges to pursue. Prime confidence enables you to perform at your highest level consistently.<\/p>\n

Confidence is a Muscle<\/strong><\/p>\n

A misconception that many endurance athletes have is that confidence is something that is inborn or that if you don\u2019t have it at an early age, you will never have confidence. To the contrary, though, confidence is a muscle, much like your glutes and quads, that can be strengthened.<\/p>\n

To strengthen your confidence muscle, you must retrain the way you think. You must train your confidence muscle so that it becomes strong resulting in your natural reaction being to flex your confidence muscle and propel you forward in your races.<\/p>\n

Confidence Challenge<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to stay confident when you\u2019re having a great training or race day, when the conditions are ideal, and when you\u2019re feeling rested. The real test of confidence, however, is how you respond when things aren\u2019t going your way. I call this the \u2018Confidence Challenge.\u2019 What separates the best from the rest is that the best endurance athletes are able to maintain their confidence when they\u2019re not at the top of their game. By staying confident, they continue to work hard rather than give up because they know that, in time, their ongoing efforts will be rewarded with fast times and great results.<\/p>\n

Most endurance athletes who perform poorly get caught in a vicious cycle of low confidence and performance. Once you slip into that downward spiral, you rarely can get out of it in the short term. In contrast, endurance athletes with prime confidence maintain their confidence and seek out ways to return to their previous level. All endurance athletes will go through periods where they don\u2019t perform well. The key is not getting caught in the vicious cycle, being able to get out of the down periods quickly, and return to a virtuous cycle of high confidence and performance.<\/p>\n

There are several keys to mastering the Confidence Challenge.<\/p>\n